[OrangeCar]

The man who raised this Toyota - Tax storm, has hung up his boots.

Shekar Viswanathan of TKM has quit / retired / exited from TKM.

One thing is sad; anybody who raises their voice which is against government, its policies or any popular opinion tends to face some backlash. Career downgrade, becoming a professional untouchable, etc. This is true more so in Indian corporate culture.

I hope my above understanding; and assumption of Shekar quitting and the tax controversy interlinked is wrong.

None the less, Shekar spent over a decade at TKM. Joined somewhere in 2008 if I am not wrong. This news piece made me a little sad.

Lets wish Shekar the best in his next steps.

Source.

[Turbanator]

Toyota taught me to look at, not profit figures, but rejection rates within the factory premises.

Well that sums up the Toyota way.

Good luck with to Mr. Viswanathan

[CEF_Beasts]

With production being low at both the TKM factories, employees strike and Mr. Shekar Viswanathan having hung up his boots I feel something is seriously wrong at TKM India. The employee strike may have been a facade the real issue is something else which Toyota doesn’t want to reveal to the media as well as the public.

Though Good luck to Mr. Viswanathan.

[RSR]

Man! I may have criticised him harshly for lobbying for a GST cut, but I'm saddened to see him go, I really am!

One should never shut out dissent & opposing views or punish those who voice it. It's a recipe for disaster!

With the strike at TKM's plant in Bidadi and now Mr. Viswanathan's (forced?) exit, something is going on behind the scenes at Toyota.

[extreme_torque]

People were calling out Toyota on this thread for being "tin can" cars and turns out they were safer and better built than the newest kid on the block with fancy tech. Good old engineering.

Also came across a comment by a former Toyota employee on reddit on why they are so reliable. It even has interesting anecdote about Etios.

"But do you know a Toyota Etios in India have water proof Volume knobs, because they did a 6 month in survey 10 different states and concluded most dealers use soap to clean the interior, seriously."

More tidbits on procurement

"So I mentioned about procurement. Toyota don’t mess around when it comes to suppliers, it's borderline Stockholm Syndrome.

I’ve seen Toyota engineers who after a meeting in 10am, book a 4pm flight from Japan to the Philippines, buying some clothes on the way to the airport, just so the next morning they could go to this one supplier 50km from Manila, to confirm one particular welding machine of one particular brackets, because one of Toyota’s material lab found out 2 out of 100 sample of theses brackets developing micro cracks, which have 10% chances of breaking apart. So let’s set a camp in front of this welder, until we know why some of it cracked.

See, there are definitely engineers in Toyota Philippines who are capable of doing the same welding study, but this guy from Japan is the one who signed off this supplier, 5 years ago, so no way he going to trust some guy over a phone 3,000 miles away. He “owns” this bracket.

So Toyota have this concept called “Genchi Genbutsu”, which means something like “actual place, actual thing”. So the engineers no matter how many reports, data, pictures, nothing beat actually going to see the thing itself, studying it, discussing about it, in front of the actual problem. And I would have to admit, it just feels more right doing studies on on-site instead in a meeting rooms with printouts and PowerPoints, even if now that you have facetime/skype.

And for that Philippines supplier, well they’re going to be whole lot busier in the next year or so. 2~3 times more audit, more report, more samples. I’ve seen supplier’s engineers quit because of things like this, because the workload increase is just too much.

On the other hand, these suppliers would wear “We supply to Toyota” badge proudly, and it will definitely give them more business. There are even some car makers who would skip some evaluation processes on these Toyota supplier, thinking if it’s good enough for Toyota, it’s good enough for everyone else. Hmmm…probably…
Maybe I write some about manufacturing and service/dealers later"

EDIT: To show how serious they are taking this on-site studies concept, Toyota HQ in Japan have a freaking helicopter for engineers transport to domestic factories and dealers, because sometimes, a 300 km/h train is just too slow."

https://np.reddit.com/r/cars/comment...em_so/eab0c7v/

[andafunda]

I am saddened that we have all got so cynical that we can't think of the possibility of a 64-year old man simply retiring at the end of a successful career? From the present release it is pretty clear he has hung up his boots.

Just see the tone of the Chairman in his message - yes it is PR vetted but you can make out the affection and close relationship. Won't say this if you are pushing out a guy, who worked 22 years for you, under pressure.

[AirbusCapt]

The government should really come clean and stop the pension and gratuity program for retired employees. It's turning to be like the EU, too many retired senior citizens eating up pension at the cost of too little revenues leading to an ever increasing tax and cess rate. The present goverment's short sighted approach has caused this perverse situation of 33% income tax with 28% GST and zero accountability towards the taxpayers. Also the current government thinks they are a part of communist China by the way they try to bully and pressurise those in opposition to back off.
I am not surprised if Toyota, Volkswagen and several other big brands will quit India due a megalomaniac personality.

[Ajay_Sensei]

Originally Posted by AirbusCapt

The government should really come clean and stop the pension and gratuity program for retired employees.

Currently, no government employee who joined after 2006 or so gets a pension. Instead they have a pension plan, which works like a 401K in the US.

Only, armed forces personnel are entitled for a pension. I don't think we can argue any other way about that.

[kiku007]

Originally Posted by AirbusCapt

The government should really come clean and stop the pension and gratuity program for retired employees. It's turning to be like the EU, too many retired senior citizens eating up pension at the cost of too little revenues leading to an ever increasing tax and cess rate.

Sorry for going

IMHO it isn't fair to expect that to be done retrospectively for retired employees.

I have seen from close quarters on how some retired government employees (who haven't enriched themselves through illegal means) and their spouses are finding it difficult to manage the ever-increasing health costs. Most of them are at the mercy of their children.

Taking away their pension is equal to taking away their dignity and status in the society and even within their own family. I wouldn't want that for anyone.

Yes, countries in the European Union, Japan or Australia spend quite a bit for the welfare of their senior citizens. Please don't look at that as an unwanted expense. People in these countries pay a HUGE amount of income tax during their lifetime. It's only fair that the Government takes care of their wellbeing through social security and associated measures.

I have observed that if there's one individual allocated to perform a certain task/deliver a service in Australia then for a similar thing India probably has ten government employees. It may be a crude comparison but that's what I see. Just see the overpopulation in RTO, Passport and BSNL offices and you'll get what I mean. These services need to be restructured to make them efficient and people should be made more productive.

Coming back to Mr.Viswananthan's exit, I think we'll end up nowhere speculating about the reasons. Good luck to a man who spoke the truth though.